Real Traviata: The Song of Marie Duplessis - Softcover

Weis, Rene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198828292 ISBN 13: 9780198828297

Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR, 2019

Synopsis

The Real Traviata is the rags-to-riches story of a tragic young woman whose life inspired one of the most famous operas of all time, Verdi's masterpiece La traviata, as well as one of the most scandalous and successful French novels of the nineteenth century, La Dame aux Camélias, by Alexandre Dumas fils.

The woman at the centre of the story, Marie Duplessis, escaped from her life as an abused teenage girl in provincial Normandy, rising in an amazingly short space of time to the apex of fashionable life in nineteenth century Paris, where she was considered the queen of the Parisian courtesans. Her life was painfully short, but by sheer willpower, intelligence, talent, and stunning looks she attained such prominence in the French capital that ministers of the government and even members of the French royal family fell under her spell.

In the 1840s, she commanded the kind of 'paparazzi' attention that today we associate only with major royalty or the biggest Hollywood stars. Aside from the younger Dumas, her conquests included a host of writers and artists, including the greatest pianist of the century, Franz Liszt, with whom she once hoped to elope. When she died Théophile Gautier, one of the most important Parisian writers of the day, penned an obituary fit for a princess. Indeed, he boldly claimed that she had been a princess, notwithstanding her peasant origin and her distinctly demi-monde existence.

And although now largely forgotten, in the years immediately after her death, Marie's legend if anything grew in stature, with her immortalization in Verdi's La traviata, an opera in which the great Romantic composer tried to capture her essence in some of the most heart-wrenching and lyrical music ever composed.

About this title

Review:

Weis traces his protagonist's short but event-filled life - she died at the age of 23 - in painstaking detail. He also offers new insights into the genesis of Alexandre Dumas's fictionalised accounts of her life and of Verdi's opera. This book will intrigue fans of La traviata, but its broader account of the treatment of women in early 19th-century France deserves a wider readership. (Alexandra Wilson, BBC Music Magazine)

Impeccably researched and astutely observed, Weis's book sifts through facts and myth, and conjures up the texture of life in 19th-century Paris, with its many flâneurs, boulevards and cafés. Bravo. (Juanita Coulson, The Lady)

[An] immensely detailed biography ... impeccably researched ... an entertaining and informative account. (Susan Elkin, Ink Pellet)

The author pieces together exhaustively the details of the courtesan's life which history and literature have failed to do. (Rebecca Ruiz, Ópera Actual (translated from Spanish))

This diligently researched book casts an astutely observant light upon [Duplessis's] memory and myth. (Aisté Anusaité, Londonieté)

The detailed and well-researched book plots the life of this remarkable woman and the extraordinary life she led in Paris in the early 19th-century. With 24 pages of detailed end-notes and a timeline of her life, René Weis successfully combines scholarly research with telling a good story. (Andrew Benson-Wilson, Early Music Reviews)

Weis has done a superior job of not only presenting the rags-to-riches story of Duplessis, but also of illuminating the distinct social issues at play that coalesced to create the platform for Verdi's famed masterwork. (John Aiello, Electric Review)

About the Author:

René Weis is a freelance author and Professor of English at University College London. He has a written on a wide variety of subjects, including Edith Thompson (of the infamous 'Thompson and Bywaters' murder case in the 1920s), the last Cathar insurgency in the Pyrenees in the Middle Ages, and a biography of Shakespeare. As a professional Shakespearian, he has published extensively on Shakespeare and Renaissance drama, his publications including editions of Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Henry IV Part 2, and an Oxford World's Classics edition of the works of John Webster. A lifelong lover of opera, he also contributes regular pieces to the programmes for Royal Opera House productions.

About this edition

• Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0198828292
• ISBN 13: 9780198828297
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 418